Representing the People

A Survey Among Members of Statewide and Substate Parliaments

Edited by Kris Deschouwer and Sam Depauw

Description

Modern democracy is organized as a representative democracy in which those representing the people are elected to their office. Political parties play a crucial role in this. They select the candidates, form or oppose governments, and organize the work of the representatives in parliament. This model of democracy is however being criticized. Parties are hardly trusted and voters have become very volatile. One wonders then how elected representatives of the people see and fulfil their role. In order to study this, a survey was organized among the members of statewide and substate parliament in fifteen countries. Members of 73 parliamentary assemblies were asked how they perceive their representative role, what they do to keep in touch with voters and how they behave and vote in parliament and how they will try to be re-elected.

One of the ways in which candidates and elected members of parliament might react to the changing conditions in which they have to represent the people is by stressing more personal characteristics as opposed to the party label and party ideology. Representation might become more a matter of personal choice. The results of the survey presented in this book do however confirm quite strongly that representation is very much shaped by the political institutions in which it is performed. Representation therefore differs between countries, between different electoral systems, between statewide and regional parliaments, and depends also strongly on the party to which a member of parliament belongs. Representation does not depend as much on who the representatives are, as on where they are.

Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.

Representing the People

A Survey Among Members of Statewide and Substate Parliaments

Edited by Kris Deschouwer and Sam Depauw

Author Information

Kris Deschouwer, Research Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel,Sam Depauw, Assistant Professor and Post-doctoral Researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Kris Deschouwer's research has focussed on political parties, elections, and the governance of divided societies. He is the central co-ordinator of the research programme PartiRep on political participation and representation. One of the projects of this PartiRep programme was the survey among members of parliament on which this book is based. He is Professor of Politics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Sam Depauw's research concentrates on legislative and electoral studies. He has published extensively on political representation and party discipline in West European Politics, the Journal of Legislative Studies, Acta Politica, and Party Politics. He is Assistant Professor and Post-doctoral Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.